‘Water is fun…’
Eren was drifting around underwater. Or whatever it was he was swimming in. It felt like water, so it was probably water.
This was all Eren had been doing for… he didn’t know how long. His sense of time had become hazy. Was it a long time? Maybe it was just a few minutes. Well, it didn’t matter. The only thing he cared about was that the water was warm. And comfortable.
He didn’t really know how he was breathing underwater either... but that was fine. It felt nice to be in.
*****
‘The walls are too tight…’
After swimming for a while, Eren noticed that the walls were starting to feel a bit too close. He wasn’t claustrophobic or anything, but he was starting to feel uncomfortable in the water. Well, not that he could do anything about it. The water was still warm, and that was what was important.
*****
‘Huh…? How am I breathing?’
After swimming for even longer, Eren began to notice the situation he was in. Breathing underwater was impossible, yet here he was perfectly fine.
‘And why are the walls so tight?’
The walls were definitely closer, and Eren could hardly move without bumping against the walls anymore.
He had an odd feeling as though that if he were to try, he could probably break out of the walls just by pushing against it hard enough with his hands. Specifically the tips of his fingers...
But he didn’t. Something told him that it wasn’t quite time to do that, and he was perfectly content listening to it. The water was still warm, and he didn’t mind that feeling.
*****
Now.
With that command, Eren reached out with his fingers and slashed the walls that were surrounding him.
The walls seemed to burst out from the cut running across it, and the water that he had grown fond of spilled out haphazardly onto the floor. The sudden lack of water exposed Eren to the cold air though, and he immediately began shivering, missing the warmth from being enveloped by the water.
The sudden brightness was the next thing Eren noticed coming out from his confinement. It was darker than he thought it had been inside the walls-
“Hack! Hack!!”
Even though being in the water had enabled Eren to breathe, the sudden lack of water around him caused him to begin coughing violently, forcibly expelling any remaining water in his lungs.
He breathed in his first breaths of fresh air in a long time, but in the midst of it, he felt his body grow weak as he collapsed onto the floor, completely overcome with exhaustion. The rapid change in environments was too much for him to handle.
He curled up into a ball and clamped his eyes shut to block out the outside world. The simple task of breathing took nearly all his focus and energy.
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*****
Weak.
A sharp, raspy voice resonated within his head.
“What?” He thought he heard someone. He cracked open his eyes to see if anyone was around, but the moment he did, he gasped and scrambled back as fast as he could in horror upon seeing the creature that suddenly stood before him.
A monstrous creature, several heads taller than him, was peering directly into his face. It was mostly completely black in color save for a few dark purple highlights and had an appearance similar to a praying mantis, but the only difference it had compared to a mantis were the large pair of dragonfly-like wings on its back and the two hind legs that it stood on.
The size of the creature wasn’t what terrified him though. It was the scythe-like arms slowly swaying back and forth as if waiting to strike at him. It was the image of a seemingly perfect and silent predator.
The raspy voice rang within his head again though, interrupting any further thoughts.
The Hive Queen is weak.
Weak? Eren didn’t know what the creature meant by saying that, or rather he couldn’t understand what the creature was saying even. His mind was in scrambles.
Run. Don’t move. Get away. Freeze.
But he stayed completely still for fear that he might provoke it. He desperately hoped that it couldn’t hear the racing of his heart.
The Queen is weaker than the last. Much weaker… Failure…? No. Unimportant. The Queen will spawn the Hive. The Hive will protect the Queen.
For a little longer, the creature peered closely at him, as if wanting to say something else. After a slight pause though, it simply blinked once and slowly crept away.
Taking a few steps, it completely disappeared from view, vanishing into the background as if it never existed.
“...”
‘What in the world was that…’
*****
Several minutes after the creature had left and Eren finally managed to calm down enough to think properly, he began to feel a sense of discomfort.
Of course, it very well could have been from the fact that he had just been faced with a monster words couldn’t describe. But this feeling was different.
It was a feeling of a dull numbness all over his body. Not painful in any way nor was it all too bothersome. It was just as if something wasn’t quite right. Like sticking your foot into the wrong pair of shoes or putting your shirt on backwards.
Was it the fact that he suddenly found himself in an incredibly large forest?
He had never really enjoyed hiking or camping of any kind. Despite living in a pretty small town where he could find fields or forests just from driving down a certain direction for long enough, he almost hated having to be outside in nature when he didn’t have to be. He always longed to escape his boring small town life for the cities.
However, Eren didn’t feel as if the forest was the reason for his discomfort. He didn’t fully understand the feeling, so instead, he decided to try to gather an awareness of his surroundings.
The moment he tried to stand up, he immediately noticed what felt so odd. His hair was grown down to his waist and tickled his neck as it swayed in the wind.
He always kept his hair short to prevent it from becoming a mess, and while he knew that some guys could pull off the long hair and still look professional, he was not one of them. Especially when he wanted to live in the city one day. He never neglected an opportunity to fix his appearance whenever possible. City folks were always well kept weren’t they?
Well regardless, the long hair immediately began to annoy him. The first chance he gets, he would chop it all off.
The most important thing for now was to find a way back home, or to at least out of the forest.
He tried to grab his hair and pull it all behind him, but the next thing he noticed was that his hands looked as if they were covered in some kind of purple material. He took a closer look at his hands and instantly understood the source of his discomfort.
His entire body felt lighter than he was used to, but the skin around his entire body felt heavier, like it was covered in some kind of smooth yet hardened material. The skin wasn’t the only change. He immediately noticed the height difference when he tried to stand up and look at his body. How short had he become? He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so close to the ground.
Eren poked at his arm to test how hard the substance his skin was made of, but he then noticed the sharp claws that seemed to be on the tips of his fingers.
Was that how he managed to slice through the walls of whatever he was in before he encountered the mantis-like creature?
He supposed so. Nonetheless, he knew that whatever he was, he doubted he was still a human.
“What am I?” Eren wondered out loud.
His skin was changed to some kind of hard purple material, and he had claws on his fingers. What else had changed?
Suddenly, he began to sense a significant lack of something. His mind hadn’t acknowledged it at first, but when he consciously thought about it, he noticed what that missing something was.
He looked down. Then he looked back up. And then looked back down again.
It was gone.